Before 2016 Dashes Away and It’s June, This is What You Need to Know About Residential Rental Income Tax. Best Way of Giving Back to Society

You have worked hard, gone through the trenches, earned your spot and in an attempt to reward yourself, you build a 4 storey apartment building in kahawa Sukari and let it sit there….to take care of world travels I suppose. Trust me that’s the dream of every young Kenyan, to have something to call their own.

Plus it doesn’t hurt to have a little money on your side, it can do great wonders and you know it. And do you know what else doesn’t hurt doing? Paying taxes. Look at it this way, you want generations to come in the future to enjoy some Glendalough 13 year old single malt whiskey while in the company of close friends and family and nod to the prospects that life is actually good; that the previous generations hadn’t been selfish. That they had cared!

But maybe you don’t care about that but I bet you care about charity and giving back to society and what better way to do that than paying taxes. This money can in turn go ahead to pay for education of many young souls yearning for it and pay for infrastructural projects which might in turn provide jobs.

And you can start with residential rent income from that apartment we talked about earlier. This is basically income which accrued in or was derived from Kenya for the use of residential property and which does not exceed ten million shillings (Kshs. 10 million) during any year of income. It shall be charged at a rate of 10% on gross rent received on monthly basis and No expenses shall be allowed for deduction. I’m thinking that’s quite a small amount to part with for the better good for society.

The tax shall be payable by a resident person (Individual and Company) effective 1st January 2016 and it applies to rental income that has accrued or is derived in Kenya for the use of residential property.

And I can imagine what’s going through your head right now; you like giving but now the process of paying this tax will require spending the whole day at KRA offices filling out depths upon depths of papers of things you probably don’t understand. That’s not actually the case, filling taxes is now easy as 123 with the introduction of iTax.

Taxpayers are required to prepare a rent schedule for all let property showing the number of property, rent received per property and gross rent received. Complete a monthly tax return online via iTax by declaring the gross rent and tax payable will be computed automatically at 10%. Told you it was easy…you can actually even do it while relaxing at home over the weekend or catching up with a game of football at the bar.

And it’s okay if you don’t receive your rent monthly but quarterly or annually, you can still file your returns when you get your money…just remember to file in NIL every month.

• Now I don’t know about you but I think this is a cool initiative to give back to society. For more information on the same, please visit the KRA website (webpage named: 2015 Landlords Legislation) or
• Maurice Okelo
• Rose Kiendi
• Josephine Mugure Ext 2025,Email;

And just in case you find them busy attending to other giving Kenyans, queries can also be directed to:

KRA Call Centre; Tel: +254 (020)4999999/+254 (0711) 099 999 or via email: callcentre@kra.go.ke. You may also contact the KRA Help Desk on Tel: +254 (020) 2816095